What's In A Name
by Anime Girl23
Summary: [Canon-based soulmate AU] In a world where the first and last word you speak is your soulmate's name, Neal hung onto the name Emma for centuries. He'd resigned himself to never finding her. Then, he did. Neal/Emma [Swanfire]
Written for the nealfirexchange for lostboybae/nevernevergirl.

What's In A Name  
One-shot

The first word he spoke as an infant was _Emma_ and the name stayed on his lips his whole life. Emma. Emma. Emma. It was a pretty name, he thought, if a bit strange. It was nothing like the names of the people in his village, but his papa's gentle smile had told him that the world was larger than their settlement in the Frontlands. She could be anywhere and he'd simply have to wait until the time was right.

"You'll find each other one day," his papa promised him.

As a child, he'd clung to that promise. They lived in a world of happy endings, he told himself. She was out there. She had to be.

Then, the war worsened and he watched his village start to disappear. Men left, marching out to a war they'd never come back from and, slowly, the soldiers got younger. Sixteen. Fifteen. Fourteen. His own time to join the war grew near and he knew in the pit of his stomach that he'd never come back from it. He would die there and he'd die without having met her. _Emma_. He was born with her name at the forefront of his mind and he'd die with her name on his lips, but to die without having seen her…

He tried not to think about it. His village needed him and he had a duty, no matter how scared he was. He'd fight the way his papa hadn't been able to. He never got to, though. His papa became someone else to protect him and everything changed. Everything went _bad_ and Emma's name was the only light as his papa went dark. Emma. Emma. Emma. She was out there, he told himself one night as his father flicked his hand and a smear of blood vanished from the floor of their little home. Emma. Emma. Emma.

She was the only thing that made him hesitate when the Blue Fairy gave him the bean. Leaving meant leaving her and any chance of finding the one he was meant for. Emma or his papa. His papa or Emma.

The portal opened and Bae breathed her name like it was an apology. He had to do it, he told himself. His papa had lost himself for him and if he had to lose her to save him… He told himself he could do it, that he was strong enough to do it if it meant saving his father.

He fell through the portal alone and he stopped believing in happy endings.

* * *

No one paid attention to Emma's first word, but on the bad nights when foster parents screamed and glass shattered against walls, the only thing that ever got her to sleep was a whispered chant of _Bae Bae Bae_.

She never understood why it brought her so much comfort.

* * *

Neverland chewed him up and spit him out.

He lost centuries on that island, his mind aging like his body couldn't as he learned that there was more darkness in the world than he'd ever let himself see. He'd spent his childhood clinging to a name and the safety it brought, like Emma's name was his salvation. It had been. It still was, he admitted, but he reminded himself that was all it would ever be. Centuries lost. Emma had died years ago.

The night the thought surfaced, he cried. He whispered her name between sobs and wondered what his name might have sounded like coming off her tongue.

* * *

He adjusted to the world he was dropped into when he escaped Neverland and left his old self behind. The innocent Baelfire that had lost everything and that struggled to survive was left behind. Neal Cassidy was born, rougher and jaded, but somehow still managing to hold onto a little light. Even alone and knowing that he'd never meet her, he let her name bring a smile to his face. Emma. Emma. Emma.

He spent nights sketching what she may have looked like. The sketches where he drew her with dark hair ended up in the trash, like his gut was telling him it wasn't right. Full skirts. Pretty curls. Full smiles. She looked like a princess, too good for a spinner's son, but as her name echoed in her head, he hoped she'd led a good life.

* * *

Something pulled Emma to Portland, like an elastic pulled taught, the pressure only loosening once she'd gotten into the city limits. It was like she could finally breathe again and she inhaled deeply, head dropped back. Her body relaxed and she smiled.

* * *

He was sleeping when the car he'd stolen burst to life and started moving. For as long as he'd spent living on his own, ready to defend himself against any threat, instinct told him that the person with the swinging blonde ponytail wasn't a danger to him. This girl—whoever she was—was safe. He rose up with a smile, amused by the fact that she'd stolen his car out of all the ones to choose from. "Impressive," he said as she jumped, gasping, "but really, you could've just asked me for the keys." She looked between him and the road, dumbstruck and mortified, and he waved her on. "Just drive. It's fine." It wasn't like it was his car, anyway. He'd only had it a few days.

"I just stole your car. Your life could be in danger." Somehow, he doubted it. Even with a screw driver and a rock the size of his fist, he didn't think she was much of a threat. She was cute, though, and she had promise if she'd been able to get in without waking him up. He was usually a light sleeper.

"Neal Cassidy," he said, his name falling off his tongue and only feeling a little foreign. He was still getting used to it.

"Yeah, I'm not telling you my name," she scoffed.

"I don't need it to have you arrested when the robbery is in progress," he said, cheeky. He just liked names. Defining. Important. Names made the person as much as their pasts did. Good names. Bad names. He hadn't been able to trust a Peter since Neverland.

"Emma," she said, "Swan."

"Good name," he said as his heart started to pound. His stomach flipped. His chest burned. It wasn't as if she was the only Emma he'd ever met. He'd met a couple since he'd escaped Neverland, but none of them had given him the reaction she had. Emma. Emma. Emma.

He knew. Somewhere inside him, he knew. Emma Swan. His Emma. The one whose name he'd said as an infant and whose name had bounced around his head for centuries. Alive. Here. He'd found her—maybe she'd found him—without meaning to.

Emma. Emma. Emma.

He smiled and felt a weight lift off him.

* * *

Emma's head spun when Mary Margret explained soulmates to her. Magic had been easier to believe in, but that… "You know when you meet them," her mother had said. "The second they say their name, something in you just knows."

She still didn't believe it, insistent that it couldn't apply to her. They didn't have soulmates in this world; that was unique to the Enchanted Forest and the realms surrounding it. Growing up here, she was sure it had skipped her. She couldn't be destined for someone in a world that she'd never grown up in. The idea floored her as much as it scared her, clinging to arguments about free will that felt empty even as she said them.

"Is your name really Baelfire?" Henry asked as Neal steered the ship towards Storybrooke. She hoped he was going that way, at least. She had no idea how to get there from Manhattan and Neal had never even been to Storybrooke. With their luck, they'd sail straight on to England. Neal had always had a thing about London.

Neal hummed the affirmative and Emma shifted, uncomfortable at the reminder that he wasn't who she'd thought. Neal, the son of Rumpelstiltskin. Her, the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. It was so ridiculous that she'd laugh if she thought she wouldn't crack under the weight of it all. Seeing him again… She still felt like she was in a dream, waiting to wake up. If her legs didn't ache with the scrapes she'd gotten when she dove at him in the street, she may have been able to convince herself it wasn't real.

It was. It was so real.

"It was an old name where I grew up," he said. He looked torn as his eyes drifted towards Gold. "My papa always called me Bae."

Emma froze, eyes wide and her mouth suddenly dry. Bae. Bae. Bae. The word—the _name_ —that had comforted her her whole life. _His_ name.

"You always know your soulmate's name," Mary Margret had told her as she stared fondly at her father. "Even when you don't want to let them in."

Their eyes met across the deck of the ship. Hers were scared, but his looked surprised, like he was realizing what she'd only just became aware of. His lips shaped her name, too soft for her to hear over the wind and the crashing waves, but she remembered. No matter how hard she'd tried over the years, she could never forget how he said her name. It still made her stomach flip.

"Bae," she breathed, expecting it to sound strange, but it didn't. It felt as natural as calling him Neal always had, but this one… She shivered as she realized it made him sound like hers.

It sounded like home.

The End


End file.
